Mercaptans, which are also known as thiols, are organic compounds used in diverse applications. Some mercaptans can be used as precursors for agriculture chemicals or as natural gas additives. While processes for making mercaptans are available, preparing individual mercaptans can be costly due to numerous purification steps required for the feedstock and/or mercaptan product. However, many applications may not require a single pure mercaptan compound, but could utilize mercaptan mixtures. Thus, there is a need to develop mercaptan compositions suitable for such applications, and methods of making same.
One such application is the extraction and recovery of metals from mined ores. In the past, mercaptans such as n-dodecyl mercaptans (NDDM) and tert-dodecyl mercaptans (TDDM) have been used as mining chemical collectors in the extraction and recovery of metals from mined ore. However, NDDM and TDDM have fallen out of favor in the mining industry due to strong odors. Thus, there is an ongoing need for mining chemical collector compositions suitable for metals recovery from mined ore.